Presidential Q&A with Pool Reporters
Remarks by the President to Travel Pool
The Printer, Inc.
Des Moines, Iowa

10:25 A.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank Bill and the employees
here at Printers for sharing with me their thoughts on the advantages
and the importance of 401(k) plans. The 401(k) plan allows a
person to invest his or her own money in a savings account which will
enhance their asset base in their retirement years.

We talked about how important it is to have an ownership society,
where people own assets. We talked about the importance of
401(k) plans for small businesses in America. And Bill very
wisely has set up a really constructive and interesting plan, one of
which the owners -- the whole concept is that this is the workers'
money, that this is Dianna's money or Judy's money and they ought to be
trusted in the management of that money.

And that's what this plan does here, it gives instant access to the
website. They can make investment decisions, obviously,
within the guidelines of the law. Now, there are some
reforms that are necessary for privately held businesses, such as
allowing for more investment advice to the workers, without fear of
being sued.

But they've got a very constructive plan here. I want to
thank Bill and thank you all for sharing we me the vibrancy of your
401(k) plan. A little later on I'm going to talk again about
some of the reforms we're proposing in Congress, as well as some of the
expansions to the 401(k) that we enacted into law during the last --
during the tax debate.

I'll be glad to answer a couple of questions. Steve.

Q Mr. President, what did you make of
Senator Daschle's comments yesterday with the war -- Mullah Omar and
Osama bin Laden are still out there?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think most Americans understand
that it's going to -- it's going to take a while to achieve all our
objectives; that by far the vast majority of Americans are
patient. They know when you're looking for one person who
may be hiding in a cave it may take a while.

But what Osama bin Laden has got to understand, if we haven't
already gotten him -- I don't know where he is. But I think
he now understands that this patient and determined nation is going to
hunt him down, that he can't hide long enough.

And the other point I'd like to make is, as I've said repeatedly --
and most Americans understand this, as well -- that our war against
terror is far greater than one person; that in order to defend freedom
and protect our children and our children's children that we must rout
out terror wherever it tries to hide.

And that's why we are working with our coalition on an active basis
to deny safe harbor, to disrupt financial plans. And the
American people are beginning to see that we have been active beyond
Afghanistan. We've obviously got activities
interested Philippines, activities in Georgia. And we're
hunting him down.

And I'm real proud of our military. We've been at this
for about six months and we've been very successful in a quick period
of time.

Q Mr. President, is there a shadow
government in place since September 11th? And --

THE PRESIDENT: A shadowy government or a shadow
government? (Laughter.)

Q A shadow government. And as
part of the anti-terror effort, are you considering granting some form
of aid to Yemen?

THE PRESIDENT: Let's see, there are two questions
there. The first one is, we have -- we take the continuity
of government issue very seriously, because our nation was under
attack. And I still take the threats that we receive from al
Qaeda killers and terrorists very seriously.

I have an obligation as the President, and my President has an
obligation to the American people to provide -- to put measures in
place that should somebody be successful in attacking Washington, D.C.,
there's an ongoing government. That's one reason why the
Vice President was going to undisclosed locations. This is serious
business and we take it seriously.

As far as Yemen goes, Yemen is a country that -- I've had a very
good discussion with the President of Yemen. I made it clear
to him, as well as other Presidents of nations, that you're either with
us or you're not with us. And that if you're with us, we
expect results.

I don't know if you remember my speech to the United Nations, where
I said, thanks for all the condolences and flowers, now is the time for
action; that if you're a part of our coalition we expect you to work
diligently and work hard to arrest al Qaeda killers. Al
Qaeda members are people who aid and abet al Qaeda. And the
Yemen government is responding.

I've oftentimes asked what about -- you know, what are the
particulars you're doing in a particular government. I'm not
going to talk about ongoing operations, I will just tell you that
wherever we find an al Qaeda presence we work with the government to
rout them out. In other words, this war against terror is
far broader than Afghanistan. And we're making good
progress.

Q Sir, some of the legal actions seeking
documents from the energy task force have been
successful. It looks like some of the documents are going to
be released. Are you concerned --

THE PRESIDENT: That's fine with me.

Q Are you concerned about some of the
information that's out there?

THE PRESIDENT: No.

Q Will it raise doubts about your energy
plan?

THE PRESIDENT: Not at all, no. I'm not
concerned, at all. As a matter of fact, I hope the Energy
Department gets the documents out there as quickly as they possibly
can.

I am concerned, though, about a Congress trying to make privileged
the private conversations the President or the Vice President
has. In other words, I receive advice and in order for
people to give me sound advice, that information ought not to be
public. Somebody is not going to walk into the Oval Office
thinking that the conversation is going to be public and give me good,
sound advice.

And, therefore, when the GAO overstepped its bounds to try to get
advice given to the Vice President and me, we resisted. But
in terms of the honoring the FOIA request, the freedom of information
request to our Departments, in which different groups are legally
entitled to do, you bet.

And we received interesting advice from a lot of people on our
energy plan. First of all, we're the first administration to
put forth an energy plan. And this nation needs an energy
plan. The more dependent we are on foreign sources of crude
oil, the less secure our nation will be. And it's about time
somebody stepped forth with an energy plan.

And we listened to energy companies, which seems to make sense --
if you're developing an energy plan, one place to start is to listen to
people who know something about the business. We also
listened to environmental groups. We listened to people that
were concerned about how to create more conservation.

And the end result was a plan that is now public and every American
has got the capacity to pick it up and read it and decide whether they
think it makes sense or not. The House of Representatives
evidently thought so, because they passed the bill. And for
the good of the country, the Senate needs to pass an energy bill that
encourages conservation, exploration and modernizes the capacity and
the abilities of the country to move electricity from one part of the
country to the next.

Last question.

Q Sir, back to the issue of the shadow
government. The reports out today said that one reason why
the shadow government was authorized was that there was a threat of
nuclear attack by al Qaeda. Is that something that is still
a significant threat?

THE PRESIDENT: We take every threat
seriously. And until this country has routed out terrorists
wherever they try to hide, we're not safe.

Now, we're doing everything we can to protect the American people,
and the American people understand that. They know that our
federal law enforcement, state law enforcement, local law enforcement
are working day and night to protect the American
people. I'm proud of the efforts. I believe -- I
know we've made America a tougher place to attack than before. It is
much harder for somebody to get on an airplane to attack
again. We are taking -- you know, we've got better
intelligence gathering. We're doing everything in our power
to protect the American people.

And I will tell you, there are people still in this world who want
to harm America. And we're going to chase 'em
down. And it's going to take a while. But I am a
determined person. And as I told the American people, I'm
not going to relent. I believe we've been called a history
to lead the world. I believe this great, strong,
compassionate country has been given a unique moment. And
I'm not going to miss the moment, by leading the world to a more
freedom-loving world. And the American people understand
that and they're solid behind this administration's efforts to defend
freedom.